My next stop is Tweespruit in the Free State (one of South Africa's nine provinces). I am taking a break from the urban township scene and moving on to a tiny little rural school called Unicom. More on that later.
You might guess from the name, Free State, that this province played a supporting role in the fight against apartheid, but that would be wrong. The name actually derives from the 1800's when the Boers (Afrikaners) established a haven from the English with whom they were generally at war. In 1880 almost half the population in this area was Afrikaans.
That's no coincidence, this is some of the most fertile terrain in South Africa and supplies 70% of the country's grain, as well as a lot of its beef. It's also some of the most beautiful terrain in South Africa. In Tuispreet, the plains start to run into the Drakensberg Mountains. It kind of reminds me of the American West. There is a long history of one group of people trying to take this chunk of land from another: Bushmen, Tswana, Zulu, Boers and English. Honestly, I wouldn't mind a little section for myself.
You might guess from the name, Free State, that this province played a supporting role in the fight against apartheid, but that would be wrong. The name actually derives from the 1800's when the Boers (Afrikaners) established a haven from the English with whom they were generally at war. In 1880 almost half the population in this area was Afrikaans.
That's no coincidence, this is some of the most fertile terrain in South Africa and supplies 70% of the country's grain, as well as a lot of its beef. It's also some of the most beautiful terrain in South Africa. In Tuispreet, the plains start to run into the Drakensberg Mountains. It kind of reminds me of the American West. There is a long history of one group of people trying to take this chunk of land from another: Bushmen, Tswana, Zulu, Boers and English. Honestly, I wouldn't mind a little section for myself.
